Does the Technology of Love, Vol 1 by C.E. Hansen have an OODA loop? And how does it work?
The answer is “Yes indeed!” Thanks to Col John Boyd’s legacy, the OODA Loop (Observe-Orient-Decide-Act) is a decision-making framework that emphasizes action with continuous feedback and adaptation. We find a very important form of it spills over and parallels the Hansen TOL model as a hybrid dynamic feedback process of human interaction.
This knowledge is invaluable helping us understand how TOL is applied as a new science.
For comparison, Boyd’s OODA theory is based upon the element of speed of executing decisions in warfare.
Hansen’s TOL decision making loop is an “RKRC Loop” (Respect-Knowledge-Responsibility-Care) with the element of care as the action. Care in all its forms, we commonly associate with love.
Boyd’s OODA Loop can best be characterized as a reactive, epistemological, instinctive process for survival, or defeat of an opponent useful in warfare, competition, business, and sports, etc. It centers basically around reacting faster than an opponent. Aka “getting inside the other guy’s OODA loop” or “ready, aim, fire.” Initially, it was a concept for a new Air Force fighter known today as the F-16 to enable pilots to react faster in a more agile and maneuverable aircraft than an adversary. The concept grew in popularity as a decision-making strategy and military tactics, then spread to civilian leadership and business.
If you wish more information about the OODA Loop, follow Col John Boyd’s footsteps; he has a large internet foot print.
Let’s now turn to Charles Hansen and the new science, Technology of Love. Its hallmark feature is the RKRC Loop, ever adapting in its feelings and logic, defining the dynamics associated with the complexities of human interaction. Hansen used systems theory to holistically integrate the natural sciences as well as philosophy and religion into a whole new field of study, a new science, if you will.
Key features of the dynamics around the TOL process are centered on the RKRC Loop its self as follows:
Four Causal Components of Love
- Respect: Loves’ Basic Requirement (Ch 2)
- Knowledge: Love’s Director (Ch 4)
- Responsibility: The Apex of Love (Ch 5)
- Care: Love’s Action (Ch 3)
The causal components R, K, R, C now make up the information necessary to take action, for example, do we care or not, and how?
“C” for care: if we wish to express love, we act with the “Intent to please.” We use vectors. Vectors of love as they have come to be known are ten ways to convey love defined as “action elements of care”. They can be use in any order or combination as follows: Attentiveness, Listening, Thanking, Praising, Encouraging, Comforting, Assisting, Sharing, Contributing, Protecting.
These ten actions elements of care are actions by which we perceive love using our natural biological physical senses. They are scientifically defined as a vector having three parameters: [Function] , [Intensity] and [Direction].
Function can be for example, Attentiveness, Listening, Thanking, etc… Direction can be one’s self, another person, intermediary, between groups, etc. Vectors also have properties of energy and information.
Interestingly, each of these ten action vectors have a specific priority associated with their state of entropy (order-disorder) . Note how Actions become more complex, and subject to entropy as we proceed through the list.
Hierarchy of action has a very important role in the TOL model. Are you beginning to sense a mathematical basis here? Does Game Theory come to mind? The study of mathematical models of strategic human interaction of rational individuals.
Now back to the RKRC loop itself. The idea is that using TOL science we can improve the odds of doing the right thing when conveying love or achieving optimal results, i.e. efficiency.
In difficult decisions, say conflict resolution, RKRC has a built-in value system that works at the moral, mental, physical, and spiritual dimensions of human interaction. (“4-D chess” anyone!!)
The ten action elements of care are considered the physical sense of acts of love. The four causal elements of love are representative of the moral, mental, and spiritual levels of the RKRC loop.
So far with just 14 words we have defined love as a dynamic process of human interaction; four as a decision-making loop and 10 as actions.
Now that TOL is in a scientific format and language, we can start asking questions about love never possible before.
We now have more tools to allow us to venture into deeper turbulent waters. Ten additional scientifically-defined action vectors have been added which do not convey love. Actions that create chaos, disorder, dysfunction in human interactions. They are the ten negative action elements of care as follows: Threatening, Demeaning, Deceiving, Subjugating, Rejecting, Violating, Extracting, Constraining, Injuring, Destruction.
With the combination of positive and negative action vectors of care, such subjects as war-and-peace, love-and-hate, good-evil, order-chaos, virtue-sin of social dynamics can be studied and applied scientifically.
Concluding Remarks
Like Hansen I knew of Col. John Boyd, but unfortunately, never met him either. I kept abreast of military matters at the Pentagon more of interest to me through our mutual friend, Franklin Spinney. The OODA loop was an interesting “buzz word” at the time and I incorporated it with success in my civilian job.
